Like a disgraced Politburo official in a retouched photograph, Jackson is to be erased from the public consciousness.

How sad and pathetic is that?

We do not know with absolute certainty that Jackson himself has done anything wrong, though, obviously, there’s plenty of reason for suspicion.

We do know that Jackson’s music has definitely done nothing wrong.

So why can’t we be trusted to make our own decisions about what we listen to?

Why are new generations going to denied the chance to hear some of the greatest pop songs ever written?

There is a long history of banning music and generally it doesn’t work. My favourite example of this is the chimurenga music of Thomas Mapfumo, which often used cleverly disguised allegories about animals to criticise the racist Rhodesian government. Subtle, but still got him jailed, of course.

And, sadly, Mapfumo is still writing protest songs; this time chronicling the many disappointments of the Zimbabwean people since liberation.

The Nazis, of course, were quite keen on banning things. Books, art, ‘degenerate’ music; all verboten. Ironically, Hitler’s own paintings have , on occasion, been bought at auction by people who said they intended to destroy them. Again, you’d have to wonder what crime Hitler’s daubs have committed.

Even the Beatles saw their records publicly destroyed when John Lennon controversially pointed out that, to some kids, they were bigger than Jesus.

And I suppose we can look forward to Hauraki and the Rock banning Led Zeppelin.

I do know what it’s like to feel a bit queasy about certain music because of the activities of the artists. I can’t listen to Radiohead or Nick Cave without feeling that their support for apartheid Israel has cheapened their music.

It’s complicated, I guess.

To be fair, I’m not a big Michael Jackson fan, I don’t often listen to the kind of stations that usually play his stuff. So this isn’t going to really affect me or my listening habits.

However, I always thought the sentiments of this song, and the ground breaking video that accompanies it, were terrific.

I’m kinda pissed I’ll never hear it on again on NZ radio. That just doesn’t seem fair or proportionate to me.

It’s a misunderstanding of the nature of art.
The artist’s personal virtue or vice has little influence over the art that gets made.
That’s why (say) a repellent, Tory racist like Philp Larkin could produce something as staggeringly beautiful as The Whitsun Weddings.

‘Among the actors who had professed their unwillingness to work with Allen again in late 2017 and early 2018 were A Rainy Day in New York stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Hall, and Griffin Newman, all of whom expressed regrets and donated their salaries for the film to organizations including Time’s Up, RAINN, and the LGBT Center in New York.’

I think the position of the post fundamentally misunderstands why the stations aren’t playing his music. It’s not an ethical decision, it’s a marketing decision.

I think that they think that people don’t want to listen to someone they think was probably a child molester. That some don’t even want to listen to companies that support that such a person.

I think they’re right, and that this goes for folks who are adamant that the allegations are lies, as much as it goes for people who believe the boys. We can’t think ill of our heroes, and we can’t think good of the villains.

There are other questions, too:
Is there a double standard regarding gender and consent? Yup.

Are there issues to confront as to why we remember and re-judge simply because a streaming company or studio financed a documentary, when much of it was public knowledge for decades? Yup.

Whether those issue are “let it lie” vs “why did it take so long” is also a conversation to have.

Jackson changed the game when it came to music and performance. I was never a huge fan, but I knew enough to know how influential he was. But there is that shadow of doubt. Am I boycotting his music? That would be easy to claim, as I hardly ever listened to him before. But if he pops up in the playlist, maybe I’ll be quicker to press “next”.

This comment is badly structured and I apologise for that – it’s been worked on for a while, and probably needs an edit. I also wanted to avoid parsing the allegations/evidence/characters and getting into that sort of argument.

It’s pretty tone-deaf to dismiss the ban’s merit if you have no sexual abuse history touching your life – easy to say ‘his music didn’t do it’ if his music doesn’t remind you of the artist as a person and the clouds of smoke of suspicion and credible accusations even during his life.

I grew up with Bill Cosby’s humour and some of it is embedded in our family jokes, never to be forgotten. It’s quality stuff. However, when I feel tempted to pity the old guy getting led off to jail, I think about all the (also) old women who had to spend their whole lives dealing with his attacks somehow.

Also to consider is: how much MJ’s music DID contribute to his problems, which then rebounded onto others. MJ had a horrifically abusive childhood and freaky life by anyone’s standards, primarily to focus and profit from his talent so the world could enjoy his music. He was yet another superstar victim of superstardom, and he paid the ultimate price eventually.

It’s a tragic story all around. When I (not very often) what MJ looked like by the time he died, I already feel squirmy. Pretty ironic he wrote a song saying “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white” when he destroyed his entire face trying to look white. There are several of his songs with similar second meanings in context of the accusations.

Correct, MJ isn’t banned and this isn’t an exercise in destruction of art. In view of a recent documentary where 2 of his victims speak out in graphic terms, there is widespread public disgust at the man and the actions of his estate in covering up.

If everyone is disgusted by Catholic Church, a sacred and venerated pop star like MJ is certainly not above reproach.

A sick and twisted little man. I for one never want to hear the song “pretty young thing” ever again.

It is a tough question in some respects; there are boundaries that we do impose on artifacts such as Nazi memorabilia that speak directly to a repugnant ideology … but Jackson’s music in question here does not.

Indeed many artists will openly tell us that once they’ve launched their work upon the world, it takes on a life of it’s own, quite separate from anything it’s creator had in mind.

If anything stories like this should remind us that the world is not divided between good and evil people; the line between the two snakes across every human heart. Jackson may well have been a very fine artist and deeply loved by millions; but like all of us, his inner life was the same chaotic jumble of motives we all draw upon.

Yet astonishingly enough, from within each of us we can discover gems of great beauty and brilliance.

There is no reason to feel insecure about Micheal Jackson at this late, late stage. Only reason to catch feelings and reasons when ever a Micheal Jackson song comes on is because it moves you. I’m to grown for talking bad about the dead.

Commercial radio is about getting people to listen to advertisements, not about music, culture or anything else. If Michael Jackson is suddenly highly unpopular with the station’s listeners for whatever reason, best he disappears off the playlist or there might be fewer people hearing the advertisements. Nothing personal, just business.

He was never convicted of actual sexual assault (multiple allegations, one accusation settled out of court, one jury finally returned not guilty), but some highly inappropriate behaviour was a matter of record.

What would you think of, say, Justin Bieber or Bruno Mars, if he regularly invited multiple young boys to stay at his house? And also admitted he got into bed with them to go to sleep? Is that OK – no worries, nothing to see here? Can you even imagine that being allowed to go on?

Plenty of people already felt that MJ dodged justice way back then due to his high profile (both for the ‘settled’ case and the acquittal). Which similar white accused child molestor can we argue about?

Justice is far from blind. I agree that Cosby paid for his colour and Weinstein is profiting from his.

Yawn, only superficial is you. You mention his songs but leave out the good ones :p

Anyway, he rightly deserves the whacko jacko name, as without his money he would have been institutionalized long ago. But hey, he’s a celeb. Normal people are crazy and disturbed, celebs on the other hand are “eccentric.” I would’t be surprised that if he hadn’t had his money and celeb status to hide behind he might have gotten the psychological help he needed.

For the rest, a talented singer and one of the best dancers of all time. Never seen so much talent wasted.

So you can’t appreciate human genius if it comes from the mind of a (possible) monster? You may have noticed that some of the best minds have unique mental abilities that are often entwined with mental health issues. Because of their mental state unethical actions are much more likely as I see it.

He did music mate he wasn’t a genius. He was exploited and became the exploiter. He emotionally connected with people and it was all lies. His victims are the heroes and geniuses – to take that abuse from such an esteemed figure and still live to talk about it – wow.

I guess I put him in a different category from other artists who seem to have deliberately used their power for their own ends. Jackson seemed to have his own mental struggles and I think he was led more by those than his privileged position.

Glitter still makes a small fortune out of song royalties. In particular, one of his songs is a crowd sing along staple in American sports stadiums. However, he’s currently banged up anyway, so the dosh isn’t much use to him.

Same here re Gary Glitter’s music – still enjoy hearing it. Mind you, the lyrics to Do You Wanna Touch Me, about girls just pretending to be shy and and how a bit of whisky can get around that, has connotations that didn’t occur to me listening to it as a 12-year-old…

Jackson was acquitted previously of the charges, and those in the documentary gave testimony that contradicts what they are saying now. So either they were lying when they gave testimony, or they are lying in the documentary.

I certainly don’t rule out the possibility that Jackson was a pedophile, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had been found guilty at trial. The point is he wasn’t, and all that is happening now is trial by media which he is unable to defend against given he is no longer here.

Pathetic behaviour by radio stations etc. Probably most artists would have exhibited objectionable behaviour in some way or another. That being the case, we probably shouldn’t be listening to any music.

It would have been very hard to return a guilty verdict for somebody like Jackson at the height of his popularity and in that era, yet several of the jurors wanted to. With the same evidence, now, the verdict would probably be different.

Yes, he can’t defend himself because he is dead, and the victims also can’t get resolution or a trial in today’s climate (as Cosby’s victims did) because he is dead. All that is happening now is a reexamination of history with a modern viewpoint. I’m not sure if you remember or have researched Jackson’s behaviour with kids when you try to dismiss the issue of ‘most artists would have exhibited objectionable behaviour’.

Even then it was creepy. Now it’s almost unbelievable. If he was a pedophile as he seemed, is it really the main point to you that he wasn’t convicted then, because that is the most reliable indicator in history?

No objection with the documentary itself. As I said, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had been found guilty at trial, and it wouldn’t surprise me if definitive proof came out showing he was a pedophile.

What I object to is it becoming a defacto trial with people assuming that it is definitive proof of guilt, and taking moralistic actions on that basis. Especially when the evidence contradicts what was given at the trial, and there is no opportuntiy to cross-examine the witnesses about why they changed their tune.

I hear you! I am comfortable with what is happening because I feel strongly the original trial could not escape bias due to Jackson’s stardom. I think everyone knew it was happening but how could you do that to Michael?

Like it or not (and many don’t), today we put much more weight on the stories of sexual abuse victims even without the independent corroboration that can be impossible to get due to the nature of the crime. People tried to get justice from MJ at the time, with the results you know. The only trial that is available now is a defacto one, with informal and nonbinding results such as radio stations stopping MJ’s music (for now).

If he’s innocent, that would be unjust. If he’s guilty, that’s a pretty poor compensation for the victims.

I have to agree with you TRP. Jackson isn’t the first to have questions raised about his behaviour and won’t be the last. Elvis was 24 and Priscilla 14 when he apparently began dating her. I’m not aware that his music has been banished from the airwaves. And then there is Woody Allen, one of the finest film makers of all time. Are his films somehow poorer because he made them? Some people can’t seem to separate the artist’s private life and from their body of work. It’s sad.

“I have long maintained that when I was 7 years old, Woody Allen led me into an attic, away from the babysitters who had been instructed never to leave me alone with him. He then sexually assaulted me. I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years. Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations?”

You talk of allegations as if they are fact. You have no way of knowing. If you don’t like Allen’s films, I feel sorry for you. Annie Hall and Hannah and her Sisters are both terrific films. About women, for women.

You quote Dylan Farrow but not Woody Allen. Denials are rather boring I guess.

Thanks for being patronising enough to feel sorry for me! Michael Jackson sang about women, too. Whether I like the art isn’t the issue under discussion – that’s for those supporting the status quo to defend.

As for talking of allegations as if they are fact, I refer you to Dylan’s:

‘In the final legal disposition of the matter, a judge denied him custody of me, writing that “measures must be taken to protect” me and that there was “no credible evidence” that my mother, Mia Farrow, coached me in any way. A prosecutor took the unusual step of announcing that he had probable cause to charge Allen but declined in order to spare me, a “child victim,” from an exhausting trial.’

Sounds like more than just allegations, no? If she hadn’t been ‘spared’ from an exhausting trial, would she have instead received justice?

The link you posted repeats the misstatements that Dylan lists in her story (timing of custody battle). And denials are certainly easier…

Here’s another rundown….

‘The Yale-New Haven Hospital Child Sex Abuse Clinic’s finding that Dylan had not been sexually molested, cited repeatedly by Allen’s attorneys, was not accepted as reliable by Judge Wilk, or by the Connecticut state prosecutor who originally commissioned them.’

I wasn’t patronising. Why ignore great films about strong women because you have a prejudice against the director? If Hitler had painted the Sistine Chapel you’d probably complain about his use of colour!

I believe that anyone can investigate anything within their jurisdiction’s legal constraints (e.g. rights of media, constraints on private investigators, etc).

I believe that people can boycott and protest things based on what they believe. And that the level of belief upon which they do these things is entirely up to them.

I believe that corporations can decide to not buy services or products from something that might lose them money, within various socialist constraints. E.g. not invest in arms dealers, etc.

I believe that phrases like “criminal investigation”, “judge, jury and executioner”, and so on are irrelevant to whether a commercial decision is made, and are basically irrational hyperbole that distract from the fact that if there wasn’t money in it, media companies wouldn’t have taken Jackson off their playlist. They think playing him will lose them listeners and advertising revenue. There is no prohibition or ban other than their individual commercial decisions.

If playing his music constantly and saying “look, any protestors are fuckwits” would make them more money, he’d be on every damned station around.

Media have already lost $600 million ad revenue to Facebook. Facebook are now discriminating against advertisers by telling them not to discriminate on who they target for job roles i.e. telling them how to spend their ad money and to spend more by not filtering. Therefore discriminating against those who want to target money, save ad money. It’s unreal. Just check face books Non-Discremination Policy. Don’t know when it went up, I scroll through from time to time looking for any changes and what the implications may be. So the market is chasing Facebook and the normies lagging behind don’t really know what’s really going on.

Yes …. I’ve no problem with people making their own choices around this sort of thing. It’s the institutional bans and deplatforming I find troublesome. The question we should always ask is, who makes the decisions and where do the lines get drawn? It’s a slippery slope argument but one that many societies have slid down before much to their cost.

And I accept that different people will react differently. It probably relates to how strongly each individual can ‘compartmentalise’ in their thinking and emotional response. It’s an interesting trait that like all others has both it’s positive and negative aspects when taken to extremes.

Vinge also wrote in the classic hard sf genre (as opposed to the fantasy mush which I can only tolerate when I need some trashy escapism), and as a real computer scientist his ideas convey both authenticity and a creative leap I find particularly compelling.

Sadly I think I’ve run out of Vinges – a Fire on the Deep was particularly good I thought, and his ex’s The Snow Queen series was superior too.

I read a lot of both scifi and fantasy – there are a few standouts. Peter Hamilton and Paolo Bacigalupi seem to be pretty good. Abercrombie and Stavely are worth a look on the fantasy side if you prefer serious, but apparently lighter stuff like Pratchett or Eames can end up going in interesting directions.

Yes .. A Fire Upon the Deep remains my absolute all-time favourite that I can go back a re-read with pleasure. The first one’s I read were The Peace War series and I’ve a big soft spot for them as well. The whole ‘computational bobble’ is such a truly inspired idea; part of me clings to the hope that one day something like this may be real.

Also we’ve done then Pratchett/Baxter The Long Earth series as well (I’m blessed with a partner who loves sf as much as I do), and they do make for a pleasant journey indeed.

But your other names I’m innocent of … I’ll track them down thank you. Cheers

Another way to look at it is like this; it’s up to our legal institutions to deal with people who transgress our laws, and it’s up to me as an individual to be compassionate. By making this distinction I don’t have to get entangled with judging and hating; but I can also demand our justice system operate fairly, even-evenhandedly and with cool dispassion.

I think it’s called hating the sin and loving the sinner. Of course in this case we don’t know if Jackson broke any laws. But clearly there are those who are quick to demonise the guy on the basis of unproven allegations.

Oh I suspect there is enough reason to think Michael Jackson’s life was so extreme and different to anything you or I could imagine, that we should not be too surprised he fell prey to the idea that the ordinary rules of life did not apply to him.

Above all else there was a Peter Pan quality to him, a deep-seated denial of adulthood, that strongly suggests an abdication of responsibility, a refusal to accept the burden of maturity. Maybe this was the seat of both his genius and folly wrapped in one.

I’m no great fan of his music, but you cannot deny his artistic influence. Pretty much most pop artists since have been trying in vain to emulate him.

He was probably never able to be a child. He was working in the family business at an early age. People don’t react to you as a child either. Little JonBenet Ramsey *was made up as a miniature starlet. Someone reacted to that and killed her.

We might need to ban the Beatles too. Didn’t Ringo Starr publish a song called ‘You’re sixteen’? Sixteen is not a child (almost), but it makes me cringe listening to a dude his age (then) fawning over an adolescent.

How far do we take compartmentalizing things- including art from the artist?

How far do we normalize and exceptionalize?

How long do we put a fiery protective hedge around someone just because shes lesbian, hes black , that bunch over there are useful political minority’s – or because someone has a beard and wears eastern style clothes it reminds us of long hazy summer days and a delightfully misspent youth?

If they are criminals then they are criminals. Except in this case we are speaking prematurely as nothing has been proven, … so far.

It’s a bit of a rude awakening when one has to consider boycotting something one actually likes.

I had that with Louis CK – I really fucking liked his comedy. As an average, middle-aged, privileged but unspectacular guy, he spoke directly to my angst with his observational comedy. But then it turned out there wasn’t as much exaggeration as one might think. Fortunately, now he’s a dick who seems to have lost his observational talent, so my virtue is now safe without me being inconvenienced in any way 🙂

Nah the third leg isn’t so bad. And the LCK jokes from back in the day were still funny (if they had been jokes, not memories).

And Cosby’s stuff would still be funny today, if it were created by someone without his track record.

Social mores changing what we find funny (like black and white minstrels or Mickey Rooney’s travesty in Breakfast at Tiffany’s) is a different issue to discovering that a particular work was created by someone who was e.g. raping or murdering folks at the time they were creating something of beauty.

But if radio stations want to keep customers, some things stay on the shelf. “The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan”, for example, will probably never be played in its entirety on TV or radio. We won’t hear Katy Perry on a classical music station for another hundred years.

Let some things sit on the shelf until the wounds are not so fresh.

Apparently some people have burned Rolf Harris paintings. I’m conflicted over that. Let them sit in storage for a while, though.

Banning and expunging is exactly what ISIS have done, desecrating and demolishing anything they deemed ‘un-Islamic’. Humanity has yet to make a full accounting of what we’ve lost because of them.

Then there was the sacking and burning of Constantinople, where we lost a major fraction of the works of art and literature in existence.

And then what should we do when confronted with Greek works of art featuring and celebrating their very normal practice of pederasty? As you say, time has passed. Yet it’s not hard to imagine someone even today calling for their destruction.

Part of what makes art work is it’s ability to confront us, often uncomfortably. Art is meant to lie just a little outside of normal, otherwise it’s just sanitised and boring. If the follies and failings of the artist is part of that narrative, it is our choice to face it or not.

Yes I haven’t heard of a ban. People can still hear the songs and buy his music. All his fans who don’t care about this will keep on keeping on. But somewhere an abused person will lose some hope that they will be believed.

Apart of the conceit of the mythos of Michael Jackson is because his fan base can be oblivious to Michael Jacksons whole history which is unbelievable even if you can some how segregate the pedophilia it is still an unbelievable life and that’s the point of a myth. A myth is to get you to realise things and not to convince a durry of criminal evidence. But that’s the thing about this type of confusion because once it dissipates you can’t return to it, and of course when you try and return to it you will meet a corpse because Michael Jackson is dead. Michael Jackson is not a creepy old man any more because he’s not alive.

In the whole way, a victim of sexual abuse can resonate distress, the body of a corpse can resonate peace but of course the victims can not find the peace they want because they can not get back to the Never Land that they want. When we describe some one in disillusionment then we describe them in a state of despair, they are sad and experience loss because it is a negative state. But notice at the heart of being disillusioned is the loss OF illusion. We are losing the fog of confusion cast over by being groomed and Michael Jackson fans will lose that sense of belonging that they had because no one belongs in Never Land any more.

Of course we should make moral reflections and arguments but the myth of Michael Jackson is saying something lies deeper that carries out responsibilities as a mega hyper star, it is important stuff. But it can ultimately be rendered meaningless if you’ve lost meaning and morality in life and I would argue that it is different and deeper than simply living a purely moral existence.

And such an interesting set of blinkers for otherwise compassionate folks!

When the product is a sports shoe or computer, when vulnerable women and children are abused in the process, compassionate people everywhere will protest and boycott.

But when the product is a song or film, the emotional link to the art or artist makes fans resist the rightful condemnation due to the victims of the process. Fans feel like they have some real personal connection to the artist and art, so would lose out by admitting the wrongs done.

Yes – mostly hidden but can show its face every now and then. Everything is cool until it hits my personal then it becomes all about MY rights. Until then it is just a thing over there. What is compassion? Not sure apart from it is not comfortable, you put energy into it.

For me the weird thing is the subjectiveness of the value judgment – he’s good, he’s bad – a bit like arguing about his haircut.

Separating the artist from the art is a bloody stupid practise, anyway.

Sometimes we’ll never get the context of the artist, but the fact is that understanding the artist and their context at the time of their creation improves artistic appreciation. Look at van Gogh – millions of people are drawn to his work by the paintings alone. Others have heard about his death, or something about an ear, and that lends an aspect of passion that makes the strokes more intense. Others know of his time in the asylum, and how he created most at those times, so it becomes an expression of insanity or a battle through it. And then others know more of the context of his studies and whose shoulders he stood on and what he and his crowd were trying to do, and that leads to more understanding.

When we observe a creative work, we have our pre-existing knowledge of other works, and our pre-existing knowledge of the creator ant their work. Sure, all pieces can stand alone, but that’s the most meaningless aspect of it.

The more we know about how a work was created, in what milieu, the more we appreciate two creations: the one before us now, and the one the artist strove to create. Picasso might have said that everything he created was perfection, but most others would have a bit more class and admitted that they reckon the next one will be a bit better. We don’t look at art just to see the statue, we look at it to see what the artist was trying to reveal.

I’ve seen pictures of Michelangelo’s unfinished marble sculptures, perfectly formed hands and figures half sunk into rough marble blocks. Pretty cool by themselves, but also pretty cool to imagine what works lie beneath the rough-hewn surface, but he didn’t have time to release them from their prison.

Separating the artist from the art is a bloody stupid practise, anyway.

On the other hand the entire point of truly great art is that it transcends the limitations of the person who created it.

Indeed it’s obvious that the most creative among us also tend to be the most eccentric individuals, often at odds with the conventionality around them. Their lives are often difficult, risky and easy to judge; yet from within them something unique and valuable emerges.

I remember a song from the early 1960s, Go Away Little Girl, about an adult male being tempted by an underage teenage girl. As far as I remember, at that time it was fairly popular and being in that same age bracket (15/16), I certainly did not put any sexual connotations on the song and neither did my friends, nor our parents, who if they did, didn’t mention it, which I’m sure they would have done. I don’t think it was ever banned from public airplay either.

Then there is the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, namely Aspects of Love, where an adult male Alex is finding it difficult fighting off being tempted by Jenny an underage girl “… you don’t want a lover in a jail cell …” as Alex sings to her. Another point is much earlier in the musical, Alex as a teenager is seduced by Rose, eventually to become Jenny’s mother! In fact in my opinion for all it’s worth, the storyline is bordering on incest! Plenty there to make a song and dance about and point the finger, but most people, myself included take it for what it is, a musical based on a novel and enjoy it.

Yeah and here’s another one from an acclaimed movie [ art ] Apocalypse Now.

All about the great anglo american western imperialist alliance complete with its rousing WHITE mans music from that beloved Jew baiter and composer , Richard Wagner beating up on on those far eastern Asiatic types… if you wait a few seconds more you’ll even see John Wayne flying into view complete with half chewed cigar in his mouth framing his square lantern jaw and brandishing his M16 in obvious eagerness to get into the fray…

Ok so Micheal Jacksons niece, Brandy Jackson in an interview is claiming the timeline in the documentary is false. She was gaining out with one of the accusers in the documentary during the time he claims to have been a victim and that Micheal Jackson had set them up. She’s been thrashing this propaganda film. Interviews here https://twitter.com/sweet_legacy/status/1100834378832379904?s=21

I’m going to just call out that I’m going to put all of Micheal Jacksons tracks on blast till Sunday you bitch ass niggers.

Well, I was wrong. Michael Jackson is a pedophile. Didn’t watch Leaving Never Land on HBO but there’s a one hour interview with the director and the two victims, and Oprah Winfrey. The entire audience are sexual abuse survivors and as the interview is going down and the details are rehashed there’s people in the audience just nodding there heads and audience members coming up to speak and there all like speaking the same language almost and as a fan boy I was trying to be more mature and passionate and as I pursued this miss frame I became even more frustrated as opposed to becoming more mature.

As Oprah said no other star shown brighter than Michaels and she began diving into the mythological biography and reflecting on the victims early life in Never Land and looked at Never Lands mythos as apart of the grooming process and other ways of grooming and manipulating and how to control the victims and there parents and even the community and the total confusion of being locked in a love affair with Michael Jackson and trying to satisfy the confusion by being close to Michael and having lots of sex with him. It’s all in Oprah’s interview. For every one who doesn’t believe the victims, Oprah’s interview is a must watch. My friend actually dragged me into the room and made me watch it and I’m glad she did and I’m sure others will be glad to have watched it too.

1) I’d be shocked if his family and friends didn’t come out to defend his reputation. It should be possible, if appropriate, for MJ’s estate to sue the doc makers for libel.

2) Back in the day, Michael’s own marriage to Lisa Marie Presley was said to be a cover as Michael really didn’t seem like, shall we say, the type to need a wife. Wifey didn’t exactly come from a traditional family setting herself 🙂 So the claim that MJ set up James and Brandy to date could be 100% true and still be meaningless as to MJ’s innocence.

Radio stations around the world are doing this. Joined up mindlessness. Oh that the sins of radio jocks are forgiven and forgotten! Hypocrites. While the media keeps calling the shots as to who has erred and weakened, their own omissions are screened. They can pick you up, steal your life, publish all the things they can find about you and imagine and embellish some; then they can plunge you downwards exposing you to a relentless barrage of expose’s and sensationalism.

Voracious media are complicit in some people’s mental problems and addictions.

Blanket was given his nickname by his father, who was inspired by the character Linus in cartoon strip Peanuts, who always carried a blanket with him.

Blanket was homeschooled before his father’s death and is now at a private school. He is not allowed on social media and any photo featuring him is heavily vetted before being released by family members.

HBO’s Leaving Neverland will air on TVNZ 1 on Sunday March 10 and Monday March 11 at 8.30pm and on TVNZ OnDemand.

These accusations weren’t new. On two other occasions, Jackson was hit with lawsuits alleging abuse. But in 2005, Jackson was acquitted of criminal molestation charges, which did not involve Robson or Safechuck. Robson testified at the trial, saying he had slept in Jackson’s room many times and nothing happened. Safechuck gave a similar statement to investigators when he was young.

It’s odd that many people say believe the chidren, but in this case they don’t want to beleve the children because the accusers – when they were children – denied being abused.

Both Robson and Safechuck later filed lawsuits, claiming large sums of money from Jackson’s estate. The lawsuits were dismissed.

by Rafael D. Quiles (gender-critical gay man from Puerto Rico) The writing on the wall is right in people’s faces and people just don’t see it or don’t want to. What could actually possess a heterosexual male to want to feminize himself and claim that he is a lesbian? Because ...

From the Wall Street Journal:Inside a room of the ornately decorated Hotel du Palais during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, President Trump awaited a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi. Mr. Trump looked over a gathering of American and Egyptian officials and called out in ...

by the Redline blog collective At Redline we are very saddened to hear of the death of Magdalen Burns who passed away on the morning of Friday, September 13 (British time). Magdalen was a great fighter for the rights of women in general and lesbian women in particular, a defender ...

The Brexit issue has certainly brought with it a series of apparently difficult constitutional issues, many of them concerning the respective roles of the executive and parliament. Most of them arise because of the unwillingness of MPs, despite their professions to the contrary, to be bound by a constitutional rarity ...

. . This blogpost is different to my usual format of reporting on issues… Since July 1011, I have blogged on a variety of political issues; near always political and/or environmental; mostly highly critical of the previous National Government. Other issues included Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and repression of ...

Those close to the Police Minister believe the initiative may be the result of Nash “seeing a great deal” on AliExpress. In a move that comes seemingly out of nowhere, Police Minister Stuart Nash announced this afternoon that he expects all frontline staff to don bearskin hats, famously worn by ...

The government has released its Arms Legislation Bill, containing the second tranche of changes to gun laws following the March 15 massacre. And it all looks quite sensible: a national gun register, higher penalties for illegal possession and dealing, tighter restrictions on arms dealers and shooting clubs, and a shorter ...

Private prisons are a stain on humanity. Prison operators explicitly profit from human misery, then lobby for longer prisons terms so they can keep on profiting. And in the US, prison companies run not only local and state prisons, but also Donald Trump's immigration concentration camps. Faced with this moral ...

When National was in power, they were very keen on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) - basicly, using private companies to finance public infrastructure as a way of hiding debt from the public. They were keen on using them for everything - roads, schools, hospitals. But as the UK shows, that "service" ...

Moving And Shaking: There was a time when people spoke matter-of-factly about the “labour movement” – a political phenomenon understood to embrace much more than the Labour Party. Included within the term’s definition was the whole trade union movement – many of whose members looked upon the Labour Party as ...

by Philip Ferguson Much of the left, even people who formally identify as marxists, have collapsed politically in the face of postmodern gender theory of the sort pioneered by American philosopher Judith Butler. For Butler even biological sex is socially constructed. “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps ...

The media is reporting that the (alleged) Labour party sexual assaulter has resigned from their job at Parliament, which means hopefully he won't be turning up there making people feel unsafe in future. Good. But as with everything about this scandal, it just raises other questions. Most significantly: why the ...

By Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern I am every bit as angry as you are. I am every bit as disappointed as you must be. The people with power, oversight and the ability to do something about these processes within the Labour Party should be ashamed. Whoever those people are, I ...

Two-Faced? Labour insiders' commitment to the neoliberal status quo puts them at odds with their party’s membership; its trade union affiliates; and a majority of Labour voters, but this only serves to strengthen the perception they have of themselves as a special elite. Among the lesser breeds, they’ll talk up a ...

There has been a lot of talk about Boris Johnson wanting an election, and he has blustered with great gusto about 'chicken' Jeremy Corbyn refusing one, but I think there are many reasons why he is secretly glad he has been refused the opportunity:The Tories are an utter rabble,tearing themselves ...

Scottish appeal court judges have declared that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful. The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the powers to interfere in the prime ...

By Simon Bridges. The following is a press release from the office of Simon Bridges, leader of The National Party. Key ora, New Zealand. Happy Maori Language Week. Look, I’m writing to you today because I want to clear something up. There’s been a lot of kerfuffle around some things ...

I understand there's some stuff going round about how the SIS "was removed from the list of public offices covered by the Public Records Act in 2017". The context of course being their records derived from US torture, which will be disposed of or sealed. The good news is that ...

Dr. Christopher Labos and Jonathan Jarry discuss the recent Canadian fluoride/IQ research. They provide an expert analysis of the paper and its problems. Click on image to go to podcast. The critical debate about the recent ...

Australia is burning down again, and meanwhile its natural disaster minister is denying climate change:Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, has said that he doesn’t “know if climate change is manmade”. Clarifying earlier comments that the question is “irrelevant” when considering the Coalition government’s response to ...

Auckland Philippines Solidarity is excited to host Professor Judy Taguiwalo for a speaking tour of NZ in September. She is a well-known activist in the Philippines and was a political prisoner under the Marcos dictatorship. Professor Taguiwalo briefly served as a Cabinet member under President Duterte but was forced from ...

This open letter to the Green Party was penned after an opinion piece by Jill Abigail, a feminist and founding member of the party, was censored by the Greens’ leadership. (Redline has reprinted her article here).The intolerance of the Green Party leaders and their acceptance of the misogyny of gender ...

Today is a Member's day, and David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill continues its slow crawl through its committee stage. They're spending the whole day on it today, though the first hour is likely to be spent on voting left over from last time. After that they'll move on ...

An ambitious plan to fly to Los Angeles petered out into a brief sight-seeing trip and a desire to return home and get some sleep before work tomorrow. Air New Zealand has confirmed a flight to Los Angeles last night was turned back about a quarter of the way into ...

There appears to be consensus – by omission – that the concept of indigenous futures should be accepted at face value. So I scavenged the internet to see if I could locate an academic descriptor or a framework around how we think about it as a concept, and whether it ...

Here’s another novelty chocolate to shove in your gob, New Zealand Cadbury could be seeking to make itself great again with a rumoured new release: Pineapple Trumps, a spin on its classic chocolate-encased pineapple treat and do-it-yourself tooth remover. The global confectionery manufacturer and bumbling “before” character in an infomercial, ...

During my time in the Pentagon I had the privilege of sitting down with military leaders and defence and security officials from a variety of Latin American nations. Sometimes I was present as a subordinate assistant to a senior US defence department official, sometimes as part of a delegation that ...

Kia ora, Aotearoa. It’s that magical time of year. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. In English, the week that frightens talk radio. As you probably know by now, all your favourite media outlets are participating, some more successfully than others. Stuff has changed its name to Puna for the ...

Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. So how's that going? I was curious, so I asked for all advice about the proposal. ...

As the Brexit saga staggers on, the focus is naturally enough on the Prime Minister and his attempts to achieve Brexit “do or die”. But the role played by the Leader of the Opposition is of almost equal interest and complexity. The first problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he ...

Last week, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that he would rather die be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit. Unfortunately for him, the UK parliament accepted the challenge, and promptly dug one for him. The "rebellion bill" requires him to ask for and secure yet another temporary ...

Lost In Political Space: The most important takeaway from this latest Labour sexual assault scandal, which (if I may paraphrase Nixon’s White House counsel’s, John Dean’s, infamous description of Watergate) is “growing like a cancer” on the premiership, is the Labour Party organisation’s extraordinary professional paralysis in the face of ...

by Daphna Whitmore Every Sunday for the past two months unionists from First Union, with supporters from other unions, have set out to the Ihumatao land protest, put up gazebos and gas barbeques, and cooked food for a few hundred locals and supporters who have come from across the country. ...

Newsroom today has an excellent, in-depth article on pine trees as carbon sinks. The TL;DR is that pine is really good at soaking up carbon, but people prefer far-less efficient native forests instead. Which is understandable, but there's two problems: firstly, we've pissed about so long on this problem that ...

Canan Kaftancioglu is a Turkish politician and member of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). Like most modern politicians, she tweets, and uses the platform to criticise the Turkish government. She has criticised them over the death of a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a tear gas grenade during ...

Hi there, just call me Tim.We face tough problems, and I’d like to help, because there are solutions.An Auckand District Health Board member has nominated me for as a candidate for the ADHB, because her MS-related pain and fatigue is reduced with hemp products from Rotorua. Nothing else helped her. If I ...

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has published their report on whether the SIS and GCSB had any complicity in American torture. And its damning. The pull quote is this:The Inquiry found both agencies, but to a much greater degree, the NZSIS, received many intelligence reports obtained from detainees who, ...

Bewhiskered Cassandra? Professor Hugh White’s chilling suggestion, advanced to select collections of academic, military and diplomatic Kiwi experts over the course of the past week, is that the assumptions upon which Australia and New Zealand have built their foreign affairs and defence policies for practically their entire histories – are ...

For most of the time I was a British MP, my party was out of government – these were the Thatcher years, when it was hard for anyone else to get a look-in. As a front-bencher and shadow minister, I became familiar with the strategies required in a parliamentary democracy ...

by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh On August 29th a video in which veteran FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) commander Iván Márquez announced that they had taken up arms again was released. There was no delay in the reaction to it, from longtime Liberal Party figure and former president Uribe, for ...

Air New Zealand couldn’t believe its luck that this seemingly ideal piece of real estate had so far gone entirely unnoticed. Air New Zealand’s search for a site to build a second Auckland Airport may have made a breakthrough this afternoon, after employees scanning Google satellite imagery spotted a huge, ...

No-one on the anti-capitalist left in this country today puts forward a case that Labour is on the side of the working class. There are certainly people who call themselves ‘socialist’ who do, but they are essentially liberals with vested interests in Labourism – often for career reasons. Nevertheless, there ...

When National was in government and fucking over the poor for the benefit of the rich, foodbanks were a growth industry. And now Labour is in charge, nothing has changed: A huge demand for emergency food parcels means the Auckland City Mission is struggling to prepare for the impending arrival ...

Gayford, pictured here on The Project, before things got wildly out of control. A bold public relations move by the Government to encourage parents to vaccinate their children has gone horribly wrong. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared on tonight’s episode of Three’s The Project, where the plan was for her ...

Mr. Whippy’s business model has driven it down a dark road of intimidation. Residents in major centres around the country are becoming disgruntled by the increasingly aggressive actions of purported ice cream company Mr. Whippy, who have taken to parking on people’s front lawns and doorsteps in a desperate attempt ...

Today the government released its Action Plan for Healthy Waterways, aimed at cleaning up our lakes and rivers. Its actually quite good. There will be protection for wetlands, better standards for swimming spots, a requirement for continuous improvement, and better standards for wastewater and stormwater. But most importantly, there's a ...

Today I appeared before the Environment Committee to give an oral submission on the Zero Carbon Bill. Over 1,500 people have asked to appear in person, so they've divided into subcommittees and are off touring the country, giving people a five minute slot each. The other submitters were a mixed ...

Anti-fluoride activists have some wealthy backers – they are erecting billboards misrepresenting the Canadian study on many New Zealand cities – and local authorities are ordering their removal because of their scaremongering. Many New Zealanders ...

So, those who “know best” have again done their worst. While constantly claiming to be the guardians of democracy and the constitution, and respecters of the 2016 referendum result, diehard Remainers (who have never brought themselves to believe that their advice could have been rejected) have striven might and main ...

Following publication of this article, the Ministry has requested it to be noted that this supplied image is not necessarily representative of what the final house will look like, and it “probably won’t be that nice.” As part of today’s long-anticipated reset of the Government’s flagship KiwiBuild policy, Housing Minister ...

Over the next week or two we will be running three synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Marx began Capital not with a sweeping historical ...

The State Services Commission and Ombudsman have released another batch of OIA statistics, covering the last six months. Request volumes are up, and the core public service is generally handling them within the legal timeframe, though this may be because they've learned to extend rather than just ignore things. And ...

In 1994, I was editing an ambitious street mag called Planet, from a fabled office at at 309 Karangahape Road. The thirteenth issue of the magazine was published in the winter of that year and its cover embodied a particularly ambitious goal: the end of cannabis prohibition.I wanted to do ...

KiwiBuild was one of the Ardern government's core policies. The government would end the housing crisis and make housing affordable again by building 100,000 new homes. Of course, it didn't work out like that: targets weren't met, the houses they did build were in the wrong place, and the whole ...

As the climate crisis escalates, it is now obvious that we need to radically decarbonise our economy. The good news is that its looking easy and profitable for the energy sector. Wind is already cheaper than fossil fuels, and now solar is too:The levellised cost of solar PV has fallen ...

A Crown Asset? For reasons relating to its own political convenience, the Crown pretends to believe that “No one owns the water.” To say otherwise would re-vivify the promises contained in the Treaty of Waitangi – most particularly those pertaining to the power of the chiefs and their proprietary rights ...

Most people would say, no doubt, that they have a pretty good idea of what money is. They live with the reality of money every day. It is what is needed to buy the necessities of life and to maintain a decent standard of living. You get money, they would ...

The article below was an opinion piece that appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of Te Awa (the NZ Green Party’s newsletter) and on the Greens website. In keeping with their policy of hostility to women defending women’s right to female-only spaces, Green bureaucrats have since removed the opinion piece. ...

Longer term readers may remember my complaining that, as a political scientist, it is burdensome to have non-political scientists wanting to engage me about politics. No layperson would think to approach an astrophysicist and lecture him/her on the finer details of quarks and black holes, but everybody with an opinion ...

Joining The Fight: Stevan Eldred-Grigg's argument for New Zealand staying out of the Second World War fails not only on the hard-headed grounds of preserving the country’s strategic and economic interests; and not just on the soft-hearted grounds of duty and loyalty to the nation that had given New Zealand ...

On September 27, School Strike 4 Climate will be striking for a future to pressure the government for meaningful climate action. This time, they've asked adults to join them. And now, Lincoln University and Victoria University of Wellington have signed on:Victoria University of Wellington has joined Lincoln University in endorsing ...

Another day, another constitutional outrage in the UK. This time, the government is saying that if parliament passes a law to stop Brexit before being prorogued, they may just ignore it:A senior cabinet minister has suggested Boris Johnson could defy legislation to prevent a no-deal Brexit if it is forced ...

Dum-de-doo. Children across New Zealand have known him for generations as the lovable giraffe who tells them to exercise, hydrate and not to shove lit cigarettes up their nostrils. But a world renowned giraffe expert says we shouldn’t be getting attached to Life Education’s Harold the Giraffe, as he is ...

By Mike Hosking. Yesterday morning, I waltzed into work, and as I walked past the drones aggressively typing out news on the computers I’ve repeatedly asked to be moved further away from, I caught a glimpse of the words “climate change”, and noticed that suspiciously they weren’t in condescending quotation ...

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National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett spent the week claiming a serious cover-up in the Prime Minister's office. She used parliamentary privilege to name three of the Prime Minister's closest advisors who, she says, knew about the sexual assault ...

“The Game Animal Council is concerned that the Government’s second tranche of firearms legislation released today may contain unreasonable provisions that will unfairly impact hunters,” says Game Animal Council Chair Don Hammond. ...

Government policy work on the Carbon Zero bill highlights connections between climate change, carbon sequestration and agriculture. Water quality and allocation are also topical with the release of the Draft Policy Statement for Freshwater Management ...

DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is welcoming this afternoon’s announcement that consultation on Essential Freshwater has been extended by two weeks - but is calling on the Minister to go further. ...

Immigration New Zealand could really benefit from an large investment of money, comments Ms June Ranson, chair of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment (NZAMI) , a leading voice in the immigration sector. “Instead of spending $25m ...

In recent times there has been no shortage of commentary regarding whistleblowers, with the proposed amendments to the Protected Disclosures Act 2000. These are aimed at strengthening the protection available to whistleblowers in New Zealand. That ...

Gun Control NZ strongly welcomes the comprehensive gun law reform bill and calls on all political parties to support it. Gun Control NZ encourages New Zealanders to let their MPs know they support this Bill, submit to the Select Committee, and ...

Federated Farmers agrees with most of the steps by government to protect people from illegal or irresponsible firearms use. But concerns about pest control and the effectiveness of a register remain. ...

Today at Parliament the NZ Drug Foundation released Taking control of cannabis: A model for responsible regulation, a new report that shows how we can take back control of cannabis from organised crime. ...

Smoking kills 5,000 Kiwis each year, so any government policies to help reduce smoking are a good thing. However, the current approaches are not working nor will the proposed limit on flavoured e-liquid that Associate Minister Salesa announced on the news ...

A petition, that promises a significant and dramatic improvement for the New Zealand economy, was handed to Dr Deborah Russell, the MP for New Lynn today. The petition, signed by over 5,000 New Zealanders addresses our crippling level of debt as well ...

The New Zealand Medical Association welcomes the announcement of an Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. We look forward to working with the newly appointed Chair Hayden Wano and the Commission. “It is vital that the steps to mental health ...

For anyone who even randomly follows the news will know that Hong Kong has been embroiled in demonstrations for months. These sometimes bloody demonstrations initially started as a result of a proposed Extradition Bill whereby there would be special ...

The release yesterday of Port Otago’s financial result for 2019, outlining a 12% increase and profits, including the news that the Chief Executive had received a $100,000 pay increase taking his remuneration to between $610,000-620,000, is like ...

“ I continue to be amazed at the incompetence of this Government when it comes to suicide prevention and mental health. Not only is this Government about to appoint a regional coroner who has a history of under reporting suicides amongst children ...

The Far North District Council (FNDC) and the Whangarei District Council (WDC) have lodged a joint appeal against the Northland Regional Council’s (NRC) omission of precautionary rules in its plan. [1] ...

The Chairman of the Authority, Judge Colin Doherty, has agreed to assist the Hong Kong Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) as a member of an international panel to provide high level advice to the IPCC in relation to its proposed "Thematic ...

“Putting families into motels is a temporary fix for desperate situations, rather than a sustainable solution to problems of poverty and homelessness,” says Scott Figenshow, Chief Executive of Community Housing Aotearoa. He was commenting on media ...

The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS) says the current partial strike by 600 psychologists working in district health boards is a sign that temporary fixes to ongoing workforce shortages in the profession are not working. ...

New Zealand’s contribution to military operations in Malaya and Malaysia from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s will be commemorated in a national service held at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park at 11.00am on Monday 16 September. ...

The resignation of the President of the Labour Party over the sex pest allegations was inevitable. It was inevitable because of his appalling handling of the situation so far; and, because in situations like this where there has to be a “fall guy” ...

Yesterday Hon Grant Robertson Minister of Finance issued a welcome ‘clear directive’ in the press to ensure every Government considers the wellbeing of New Zealanders when creating future budgets . ...

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters today urging that New Zealand condemn the Israeli Prime Minister’s planned annexation of vast tracts of the occupied West Bank of Palestine. ...

Today Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence (NPM) releases its next Te Arotahi paper calling on government to pay even closer attention to the issues of whānau and whakapapa within the criminal justice system. ...

“Technology adoption supports higher productivity growth, higher income growth and increased resources to pay for the things New Zealanders’ value. But the main problem facing New Zealand today isn’t too much technology, it’s not enough,” ...

Federated Farmers is asking nicely - please can the Government immediately extend the timeframe of the Essential Freshwater consultation so we can find a pathway forward that provides for both the health of the water, the health of people and the health ...

Youthline applauds the Government’s commitment to boosting mental health and addiction programmes and its intention to establish a Suicide Prevention Office but we urge swifter action in relation to implementing the programmes announced in the last budget ...

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An Auckland mayoral candidate has broken the internet* by announcing a plan for a monorail around the central city. Who is Craig Lord, and is he serious? Alex Braae spoke to him shortly after his campaign launch to find out.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. ...

Antibiotics are becoming increasingly less effective, so what treatments can we use when the drugs stop working? With help from plant extracts, award-winning company HerbScience is set to breathe new life into how we treat bacterial infections.When Cynthia Hunefeld was just 10 years old, her father was hospitalised with a ...

For some, it symbolises the very backbone of New Zealand’s food culture. But can Kiwi onion dip survive after the factory that makes reduced cream is shut down?The Australian factory that makes Nestlé reduced cream, an integral ingredient in Kiwi onion dip, is shutting down, casting a shadow over the ...

Every year Matariki X brings Māori innovators and entrepreneurs together to share their experiences and inspire one another. Callaghan Innovation’s Vinnie Campbell says the Māori economy’s biggest strengths have nothing to do with money.This story was funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The ...

Today marks the start of Covering Climate Now. To launch the week, the New Zealand climate change minister, James Shaw, writes an open letter to participants in the School Strike 4 Climate ahead of their day of action later this month.The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is thanks to ...

National’s new agriculture spokesperson finds himself in one of the party’s most important portfolios, at a time of dramatically increasing tensions in the sector. Will Todd Muller, a man regularly mentioned as a future leader contender, find common ground?Todd Muller’s obsession with politics began with an American encyclopaedia, which his ...

Miss June’s Bad Luck Party was recorded literally between hospital shifts, and their summer schedule includes both festival dates and their frontwoman’s graduation from medical school. We sat down with the band to ask just how, exactly, they’ve survived so far.The first years of life for Tāmaki Makaurau pop-punk quartet ...

The following four short extracts are from A City Possessed: The Christchurch Child Crèche Case by Lynley Hood, which has just been reprinted by Otago University Press. The book was first published in 2001 and won the Montana Medal for Non-Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The controversial ...

Hamilton councillors have drawn headlines this year for being anti-science and insensitive to terror victims. At a mayoral debate on Wednesday, there were signs a campaign for change is gathering force.The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The SpinoffMembers. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click ...

The Spinoff editor writes on the story that has engulfed NZ politics this week.One of the very few positive things to come out of a hideous week in New Zealand politics has been the sieving-out of the blinkered, partisan zealots. On one side, those who are ready to conjure up ...

In June 2018, Rawinia Higgins was appointed chairperson of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. She’s the first female and the first te reo Māori second-language speaker to hold the role, and during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, she sat down with The Spinoff to talk about her ...

Compulsory New Zealand history in schools is an exciting opportunity but it’s crucial we’re critical of the stories we tell ourselves, writes Dr Aroha Harris. History is not simply an assemblage of facts and evidence. History is also the interrogation of those things.This may be unsettling news for some, including the ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alastair Blanshard, Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History Deputy Head of School, The University of Queensland Comedy often succeeds where tragedy fails. Fangirls, the pop musical which premiered on Thursday night in Brisbane, is not the first drama to explore ...

On the 10th anniversary of the infamous “Imma let you finish” episode, Josie Adams reflects on what this moment revealed about both Taylor Swift and Kanye West.Cast your mind back a decade: 2009 DJ Earworm was still good, Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the US, Israeli ground ...

Analysis - An astounding week in politics has left Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern carrying responsibility for sorting out the mess the Labour Party is in over the sexual assault allegation, writes Peter Wilson. ...

Police Minister Stuart Nash has confirmed details of a new bill that will create a registry of guns, and new offences and penalties for illegal manufacture, trafficking or changing markings of firearms. ...

Charli XCX has just released her latest album, Charli. The futuristic musician is always looking ahead, and so are her fans. We’ve paired each star sign with their perfect Charli XCX song.Charli XCX burst onto the scene in 2012, when she co-wrote and performed electro-pop headbanger ‘I Love It’ with ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benedict Sheehy, Associate professor, University of Canberra British health-care conglomerate Bupa runs more nursing homes in Australia than anyone else. We now know its record in meeting basic standards of care is also worse than any other provider. This is more than ...

Fable is best remembered for the disastrous, over-the-top promises made by its designer Peter Molyneux. But maybe, Adam Goodall argues, we’re remembering it all wrong.“There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games.” So opens an October 2004 post on the ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre, Griffith University Argument is everywhere. From the kitchen table to the boardroom to the highest echelons of power, we all use argument to persuade, investigate new ...

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $40)Stand by for a review from ...

Tara Ward delved into Māori TV’s impressive OnDemand catalogue and found some of the best TV taonga for your viewing pleasure. From lifestyle shows to documentaries, from current affairs to reality TV, Māori TV has an abundance of quality telly that celebrates and acknowledges the people, places and cultures of ...

A new poem by London-based poet Morgan Bach.Turning, hurtlingI march diligently to sunshine in the parkeverything bathed and turning golden.A woman breathes fire by the folly framing herlike a personal door to hell. Conkers are pitched from high boughsto break and give up fruit, a spire emergent from the baring ...

Simon Day learns about the history and power of Chinese five-spice. Both the origins of Chinese five-spice and the flavour itself are a little mysterious. My internet investigations revealed the powder’s name could be in reference to the use of five spices (although this often grows to six or seven), or ...

Revelations around alleged sexual assault by a Labour staffer and the party inquiry into his behaviour have dominated the week. Alex Casey and Mihi Forbes join Gone By Lunchtime to survey the damage.Alex Casey, author of the Spinoff feature published on Monday, “A Labour volunteer alleged a violent sexual assault ...

In the fourth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect AI has on our lives, Russell Brown speaks to Ana Arriola, general manager and partner at Microsoft AI and Research, about ethics and transparency in tech.Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below.To download this ...

Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Labour Party sexual assault allegations Andrea Vance (Stuff): How to make the Labour abuse scandal ...

Toi Kai Rākau Iti, who is running in the Eastern Bay of Plenty Kohi Māori constituency, encounters an unlikely channel of youth engagement.In te ao Māori you’re always looking for tohu, or symbols. They guide you through uncertain territory and help you make sense of the world. The arrival of ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomer Ventura, Senior Lecturer, School of Science and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast The creation of all-male or all-female groups of animals, known as monosex populations, has become a potentially useful approach in aquaculture and livestock rearing. Researchers and those in ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Holmes, Director, Climate Change Communication Research Hub, Monash University Predictably, both major political parties are resisting calls this week for a parliamentary conscience vote to declare a climate emergency in Australia. The resistance is unsurprising because both the Coalition and Labor ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Shi, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University If the Religious Discrimination Bill passes into law, women may find it harder to get an abortion. That’s because health practitioners with an objection to performing the procedure on religious grounds ...